Anice's Bargain

by Madeline Martin

  “I tell you, I’ve come to complain about the baker’s boy.” Tall Tam’s voice growled with rage. “You’re lucky I’ve not killed the bastard yet. But I’ll not hang for a crime he committed.”

  “Verra well, I’ll see to ye first today so long as ye’re respectful.”

  While the tension did not relax from his shoulders, he nodded in acquiescence. “This is my daughter, Ingrith.”

  Anice peered around the column to see a comely blonde-haired woman beside Tall Tam.

  “Tell him what happened.” He nudged her and she gave a swift curtsey.

  The young woman pursed her lips and shook her head vigorously. “I don’t want to say it, Papa.”

  “The baker’s boy had his way with my Ingrith.” Tall Tam huffed out an angry exhale. “Now the lass is with child.”

  “It was not willingly,” Ingrith protested. Her cheeks went red. “Gilbert forced himself on me. I tried to fight him off, but I…I wasn’t strong enough.” She choked on a sob and the heart-wrenching sound of it echoed around them.

  James leaned forward in his seat to peer at the gathered people. “Where is he?”

  Tall Tam jerked his thumb to the line behind him. “He’s waiting to air his grievances on me for insisting he marry Ingrith.”

  Ingrith erupted into tears and cowered closer to her father. Anice’s heart flinched with the girl’s misery.

  A beefy boy with thick forearms and ruddy cheeks stepped forward. “I’ll not marry that slattern. I’m a baker’s son. I can do far better than the likes of her.”

  James got to his feet slowly. The hum of errant conversation fell away, and the hall went perfectly silent. Piquette shifted at Anice’s side, uneasy about the sudden quiet.

  For her part, Anice’s body tensed with anticipation. Part of her, a very large part, wanted James to take the baker’s son to task and use his beaten body as an example to others. But all her experience as an earl’s daughter knew such punishments were not welcome among the people, especially when the master was newly seated in his power.

  James came to stand in front of the young woman, who sniveled her tears into muted snuffles and cast a frightened stare up at him. Her hands settled protectively over her lower stomach. Unwanted though the child may be, maternal instincts were already setting in.

  “Ye said the miller’s son took ye by force.” James spoke quietly, in the careful way he did when he’d first met Anice. A gentle contrast to minimize the intimidation of his size.

  Ingrith nodded again. “Aye. Gilbert Miller. I tried to fight him off as best I could. It’s how he got that scar on his cheek.”

  The attention in the room swept to Gilbert and the angry red scar running up from his jaw, cutting through his close-cropped beard.

  Gilbert shrugged indifferently. “She’d been flirting with me enough—”

  “That’s not true,” Ingrith protested.

  James held up his hand to still her argument and she immediately clamped her mouth closed. He stalked to Gilbert. “Did ye rape this lass?”

  Gilbert scoffed. “She enjoyed it. It’s obvious she did, or she wouldn’t have ended up with child. Everyone knows that. So, nay, it was not rape.”

  To Anice’s horror, a murmur of agreement rippled through the surrounding witnesses.

  Anger surged through her, but before she could acknowledge her fury, James’s fist shot out and slammed into the young man’s face. Gilbert staggered back, holding his cheek. At first, he bristled, as though he intended to return the blow, but then eased back as he thought better of it.

  “He needs to wed my Ingrith for what he did.” Tall Tam folded his arms over his chest.

  James looked at Tall Tam’s daughter, who had fallen once more into a pitiful weeping that made Piquette whine with empathy on each exhale.

  “Do ye want to marry this man?” James indicated Gilbert.

  The young woman furiously shook her head.

  “How do you expect to care for the babe without a man to see you both fed and clothed?” Tall Tam demanded. “I’ll not be doing it. I already saw you grown and won’t do the same for your bastards.”

  “She can work here.” Anice swept in from her hiding place. “I needed a lady’s maid anyway, and she’ll do nicely. Once the babe is born, it will be safe in the castle and she’ll be nearby.”

  James smiled at her and everything inside her went warm and fluttery.

  Was there ever a man such as that of her husband? One who fought for what was right, who defended the weak with his undeniable strength and newfound power. He was good and just, everything she’d never expected from a Graham.

  And he was hers.

  James faced the culprit once more. “Gilbert, son of the miller, ye are henceforth excommunicated from Carlisle.”

  Those in the great hall drew a collective gasp. In a world where one’s survival was based off their trade, off the protection of one’s family and the fabric of the community to whom they belonged, excommunication could well mean a bitter and lonely death.

  The color drained from Gilbert’s face. “What will I do? Without a home, without a trade?”

  “Ye can do what it is ye expected her to do with a babe and no man to see her cared for.” James turned his back to the man, indicating he had no intention of discussing the matter further.

  “This isn’t right,” Gilbert bellowed.

  James flicked his hand toward the reivers standing menacingly on either side of him. “See him out and get him off our land. Let it be known rape will not be tolerated in Carlisle.”

  “This is your fault.” Gilbert lunged at Ingrith and launched one meaty fist toward her stomach.

  Without thought, Anice delivered two blows of her own. The first to block Gilbert’s path from striking Ingrith’s tender stomach, the second smashing with a satisfying crunch into the cur’s face. Ingrith gaped at her in shock.

  In fact, every person had gone silent as the dead in their surprise as many regarded her with wide eyes.

  Anice resisted the urge to shake free the pain in her fingers from the assault. “Come.” She casually took Ingrith’s arm and led her from the great hall. “Let’s leave the men to their handlings. I’ll show you to my room.” She gave an apologetic smile. “If I can find it.”

  Ingrith was a small-faced woman with fair blonde hair and bright, clear blue eyes, albeit rimmed with the misery of her tears. “I can help you with that, Mistress Graham, but it is all I can offer in regard to my assistance.” She bowed her head and stared hard at her scuffed shoes as they walked. “I know naught of hair or clothing.”

  Anice waved her off. “I can show it all to you. I had no lady’s maid at Werrick Castle. I have four sisters and the lot of us would help one another every morning and night.” She smiled at the memory of so many giggles and stories shared between them.

  A fresh chasm of pain opened in her chest. How had it been only a sennight since she’d last seen them? It felt as though a lifetime had passed.

  “I’ll try my best, Mistress.” Ingrith stopped and regarded Anice with a wide, honest gaze. “Thank you for what you did, for saving me.” She pressed her lips together, but it did not quell her growing smile. “When you landed a blow on his nose. That was marvelous.”

  Anice flushed. “I’ll show you how to do it so you’re never in such a position again.”

  “I would like that very much.” Ingrith’s face set with determination. “And I appreciate Mr. Graham for what he did in sending Gilbert away. Your husband is a good man.”

  “Aye, he is.” There went the warmth inside her again, growing and swelling, as though she was glowing from within.

  It was then Anice understood something she could never have anticipated with this marriage, something already beginning to blossom in the time she’d spent with James at Werrick, and what they’d experienced in Caldrick Castle: Love.

  Perhaps Leila had been wrong after all when she’d predicted the marriage would be a failure.

  With everyt
hing going so right, what could possibly go wrong?

  21

  The next month in the castle flew by in a series of ploughed fields and planted beans, with James settling into his role of master of the land in Carlisle. The days were filled with doing what he could to set his people’s wrongs to right, and the nights were spent with his lovely wife, warm beneath sheets as they learned every sensual inch of one another’s bodies.

  In only that short amount of time, the crops had begun to take root and grow. Dirty-kneed Graham children ran about together with the English-born children of Caldrick, armed with stones to throw at birds and animals who threatened the tender shoots. Thus far, they’d done a good job. Very little was lost and day by day, the fields filled in with green.

  Cottages were freshly thatched and the construction of new ones had begun. The large amount of coin included with Anice’s dowry afforded enough food for the whole of Carlisle while they waited on their growing crops. The following years could sustain on what would be harvested.

  And James had begun to learn to read in English, bit by bit, and had already begun to implement what he’d gleaned from the book Anice had given him.

  The Graham reivers were adjusting well, and a sense of peace had settled between the Scottish and the English. Anice’s new maid was coming along nicely in her duties, spurred on to learn by her desire to repay the kindness bestowed upon her. Ava was pleased to return to her duties assisting the cook, and certainly, her pastries reflected as much. Even Drake had been satisfyingly out of the way for the better part of the month. Or at least from what James had seen.

  Everything was going according to plan. Better than planned. James opened the shutters to let in the crisp spring air and stared out the window of his solar to where the neat rows of new, pale green plants grew. Peas and beans and wheat and oats and barley. They were planting life. Honor. Freedom.

  Lord Bastionbury would be proud. Mayhap James would invite the older man to join them for the Lammas Day celebration in early August when the first wheat was harvested.

  The murmur of male voices sounded just below James’s window where a patch of ivy grew over an alcove on the battlements. That the place was ideal for clandestine meetings and private discussions and located in such close proximity to the solar window was surely not a mistake, but the work of a crafty and clever lord.

  “Do ye think it can be done?” a male voice asked.

  “Ach, aye, I know it can.” The rattling voice was more familiar than James could ignore. His father.

  The other man spoke again. “Ye were no’ there so verra long.”

  “I assure ye, nearly a month was plenty long enough,” Laird Graham said. “I know every way in and out of Werrick, as well as any potential weakness. Do ye think you can round up the men?”

  James strained to listen. Surely his father did not mean to try to take back Werrick after the forced marriage. It had been he who had secured this land. He’d even had his own tryst with Werrick’s healer.

  His father’s fellow conspirator did not reply at first. “The men are happy here. They like working the land. They especially like a bellyful of hot food in their gullet every night. No’ just for them, but also for their wives and bairns.”

  Laird Graham scoffed. The crass sound morphed into a great, wracking cough. He continued to do poorly despite the clean air at Carlisle and the onset of warmer weather blowing in. It wasn’t just the wheezing and persistent hacking, but also the sallow tinge to his face and the lines around his mouth that bespoke of an unmentioned pain. Isla had sent some bundled herbs for his father to burn, but James doubted the old man had gone through the effort.

  “The men are content now,” Laird Graham agreed. “But what happens in several years when wielding a plough and scythe aren’t enough? When their souls crave adventure?”

  “’Tis a quiet life,” the man said simply. “I like it.”

  “Ye dinna miss reiving? Ye dinna miss plundering?” James’s father emphasized the last word.

  The man didn’t reply this time, or if he did, James could not hear.

  “How would ye feel if a sudden raid were to raze the lot of yer hard work to the ground?” The low menace in Laird Graham’s voice prickled James’s spine.

  There was an unmistakable threat there, one that could put the whole of Carlisle in danger. This needed to stop. Now. And James would have to tread lightly with the topic, lest his father take it upon himself to enact his vengeance.

  “I’ll speak to the men,” the nameless man said at last.

  “Aye, see that ye do. I’ll have an answer from ye in three days’ time, aye?”

  A grumble sounded in return.

  “Think on it, lad,” Laird Graham said emphatically. “The purloined spoils of Werrick Castle, ours again.”

  With that, the conversation ceased and the departure of footsteps crunching over the stone battlements moved in opposite directions. James dragged a hand through his hair. The quiet peace of his current life could not last forever. He knew that well enough, but he’d expected at least more than a month.

  However, James now understood what the marital negotiations, the insistence that they remain at Werrick Castle until the nuptials, had truly been. A ploy, a way to learn the layout so that Laird Graham might relive the glorious plunder of Werrick one last time. And he’d exploited James’s desire for a more peaceful life to get him to comply. James’s stomach turned at how easily he’d been fooled.

  He should have known better. A lifetime with his father’s perfidy and all-consuming egoism should have taught him better than to trust.

  Now it was James’s people who would pay the price.

  He tapped his finger on the stone sill and stared at the several options facing him. He could confront his da, but that ran the risk of his father making good on his promise to destroy the newly farmed land. Doubtless, the half of their clan in the Debatable Lands would leap at the opportunity. James could confide in Anice, except that if she told her family, they would have another war on their hands, and he was heartily done with war.

  Or he could play into his father’s hands, pretend to aid him when really, he intended to thwart the old man’s efforts. Aye, this way, no one got hurt and everyone stayed safe.

  The only one at risk would be James.

  Anice suspected something was amiss with James. He was always an attentive husband, but the prior two days, he had been distracted and forgetful.

  She pointed to a pot of balm, the one tinted a soft red, for Ingrith to use in application. The young woman had learned quickly with her tasks and had become a far better lady’s maid than any of Anice’s sisters. The very thought of her sisters still knocked hard at her tender heart.

  She shoved away the image of them that threatened to rise. It was far easier to stuff the hurt of missing them into a dark corner of her mind rather than give in to its suffocating ache. Thus far, setting herself to other tasks had been successful.

  Ingrith lightly touched the balm and rubbed a perfect amount on Anice’s cheeks with her soothing, cool fingers. Just enough to give her a hint of a flushed appearance.

  “You’re so lovely, my lady.” Ingrith’s praise was given with apparent pride. “Everyone says Mr. Graham is by far the luckiest man in all six of the Marches.”

  Anice’s cheeks warmed with a genuine blush. “That is kind of you to say, Ingrith.” She bit her lip, debating whether to confide in her new maid or not. “I confess I fear he has been acting strange of late. It’s why I asked you to apply the rouge to my cheeks.”

  She forced herself not to squirm in her seat after the foolish admission. In hindsight, she ought to have kept her words to herself. But she’d been so long without a confidante, other than James. It threatened to drag her back into the pit of loneliness once more.

  No doubt the color she’d had Ingrith add to her cheeks was just as foolish of an idea. In the time of their engagement and now through the first month of their marriage, James had never once t
old her she was beautiful. She knew he found her comely. His ministrations at night, the way his mouth and hands drew toward her as soon as the door to her chambers was closed and how he stayed with her through the night. All his actions bespoke of strong attraction.

  He did praise her. For her skills in managing the castle, her fighting abilities as she instructed the ladies of Caldrick how to protect themselves, the ease with which she’d overseen the ploughing and planting. He noticed every small thing about her.

  Except her appearance.

  James was perhaps the only man in her life to have not praised her beauty, and he was the only man she’d ever wanted to impress.

  “The people of the village have been acting a bit off as well, my lady.” Ingrith’s words broke into Anice’s thoughts. “Only the Grahams, if you pardon my saying as much.”

  Anice tilted her head in consideration. “Only the Grahams,” she murmured, more to herself than to Ingrith.

  Ingrith shifted her attention to Anice’s hair, smoothing and weaving the long blonde locks into a plait to coil atop her head. “I hadn’t thought to mention it to you. But after you’d said as much about Mr. Graham, I thought it best to make you aware of my observations.”

  “I’m grateful you did.” Anice smiled at her through the small mirror. “I have a suspicion they may be all linked.”

  “I will inform you if I hear anything, my lady.” Ingrith carefully laid a gauzy veil over Anice’s hair and secured it into place with a gold circlet.

  “Thank you, Ingrith.” Anice studied her reflection.

  Life in Carlisle had been kind to her. She’d gained back the weight lost during the siege and radiated with good health. Between that and Ingrith’s newly discovered skills, Anice was more attractive than ever. Mayhap enough to encourage a compliment from her husband.

  “You will be all right with Piquette?” Anice asked.

  Finding himself the source of discussion, the large dog lifted his head, his brow furrowed as he listened intently for his favorite words: walk, come, food, good boy.